That Place Between the Rocks
by bread and coal
Summary: I think it's about purity. But it might be despair. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell.


_I know the purity of pure despair,  
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,  
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,  
Or winding path? The edge is what I have._

- Roethke

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JOHN is on the floor.

It is not his fault.

He is on the floor and it is not his fault. That is, essentially, all that there is to know.

But he wants there to be more, more than that, and so he closes his eyes and curls around the wrenching muscles of his solar plexus, where the pain lounges like a demon on a chair of fire, laughing in agony at the scene that takes place. It laughs at JOHN, and he cradles it like a little bitty baby, all fragile and new. And he does not cry.

JOHN never cries. Except for sometimes when he's on the floor curled around the demon pain in his stomach and suddenly the light from the sun slides through the window like music from a violin. The man next door used to play the violin when he was sober and sing when he was drunk, but then one time he was so very sober that he played that violin till it was dead and he sold the remains for booze. JOHN heard him, and he knew what it meant, and he cried.

But only that one time. Right? That's what he says to himself, to the light slipping over the floor like a pool of gold, even though he knows it's a damn lie. JOHN cries all the time.

Alone. At night.

But it is not night and he is not alone, so he does not cry. SHE comes in and says, what the hell are you still doing on the floor you lazy bastard, and JOHN laughs. I am a lazy bastard, he says, and you just answered your own question. And he can hear her standing still. He does not need to look, he knows that face like the face in the mirror, mainly because they are the same. All the same. JOHN laughs again and understands that there may not be any difference at all.

And he knows without looking that she is standing in the doorway with one hand on her skinny hips and the other in her ebony hair and she is caught between the choices. She has not yet decided how to direct this moment. JOHN doesn't care. She will either step back into the kitchen and burn something on the stovetop and throw something against the wall and maybe get drunk. Or she will fly across the room, a valkyrie come to collect the dead from the field of battle, only JOHN is not dead so she will kick him instead. And, for the third time in a moment, JOHN feels the raw mirth bubbling out of his throat so he laughs, he laughs and hears her bare feet pounding away, back into her smoky little corner of the smoky little house.

Only right now there is not as much smoke because HE is not there, but between the three of them on a Quiet Day the Cade family can turn that house into an island of smoke and JOHN loves it. He loves it because the rooms fill with holy clouds of chemicals and he can lay on the floor and inhale and close his eyes. And no one yells because no one can see. Because when they open their eyes it is only smoke, everything is smoke, and when their pupils begin to sting they can just lay back and pretend nothing ever happened.

Those are the days when JOHN feels the best. Those are the days when he thinks maybe his life is not so bad after all.

But right now, at this particular point in time, JOHN is pretty damn sure that his life is not much of a life at all, here on the floor with his hands cradling the hard muscles of his clenched stomach.

Somewhere in the background, either a demon is laughing or SHE has turned on the radio. JOHN closes his eyes.

He knows that if he keeps them closed long enough, something will happen. Either he will fall asleep and wake up to the hurricane voices of his parents, or he will hear the heavy boots vibrating the floor as they approach, and he will make a break for it through the back door. He has had enough for one day, but JOHN knows from the entirety of his childhood that HE never has enough, that HE is never too tired to hit. JOHN has not inherited this trait. Sometimes he wishes that he did because then he could do nothing but fight, just fight and fight and fight and never get tired and never feel sick of it and never understand how fucking useless it all was; all he would have to do would be fight and everything would be fine.

JOHN is not fine.

And he knows that.

But maybe he will stay here for a while, because of the pain and because he knows HE will not be back for a few hours at least and because he likes to be alone.

JOHN has always liked to be alone. Even when he was very young, he liked to be alone. There used to be a single spiky tree that never grew any fruit somewhere, he thinks it might have been the Curtis' yard but he can't remember. It was somewhere. He used to climb it to be alone and think about things, and sometimes Pony would come out and climb it too. And they would sit in the tree and be silent.

But that was a long time ago, in a very different world. JOHN is often told by his geography teacher that he does not understand the world, but JOHN understands better than anyone else about worlds. JOHN is very aware of the different worlds his life weaves through, and right now there are only two. Out There and In Here.

Out There he is Johnny or Johnny-cake or John or Cade or That Quiet Kid, but in his head he is always and only JOHN. And he will answer to any of these names and he will go all sorts of places, the pool hall and the bowling alley and the Curtis house. But after a while all of these places will start to shrink on him and he understands that the reason it is so hard to breathe is that he is not meant to be there, he is supposed to be outside under the stars or in a forest full of snow or at the ocean, but he is JOHN and he cannot go to any of those places because he is JOHN and this side of this city of this state is his home and damned if he can ever get away from it for good.

And those are the times when JOHN starts to think about death.

JOHN thinks about death a lot.

And all of the sudden JOHN forgets about the light and ignores the pain and pushes himself to his feet. His arms feel like iron. He is shaking.

The floor creaks as he moves into the kitchen.

SHE is there with a beer in one hand and a frying pan in the other and a cigarette between her lips. JOHN keeps one eye on the frying pan because that is currently the weapon. SHE does not throw away beers. Leaving, he says, and slowly, so as not to disturb her, takes his jacket from the wall next to her. SHE doesn't even look.

Goodbye Johnny, she says, the cigarette flapping as the talks, goodbye and try not to get into too much damn trouble with them worthless hoods you run round with and-

Bye, says JOHN. He is halfway to the door.

And try not to come home too early, Christ knows that might just kill me of shock, you know, SHE says. And try not to get in your daddy's way if you do, Christ knows that just might kill _him _of shock and you know, boy, if you could just do as you were told for once-

I have to go, says JOHN. But he stops. He stops and looks at the face of his mother, the face so like his own, and so he sees the way is crumples like a paper someone squeezed, but he knows better than to go back.

Oh Johnny, don't walk out like that, I didn't mean it like that, I just wish…

I know, says JOHN.

I love you, baby. Just don't be out all night, she says, and JOHN looks in her eyes and knows that if he comes home before they are unconscious his first greeting will be a bottle at his head, but he tries to smile anyway because sometimes she just looks so damn pretty in the smoky sunshine. I know, he says again, _I love you too,_ only he doesn't know if he means it or not because he's never understood the first damn thing about love and maybe that is why there is no real difference between them.

Something stings the corners of his eyes like tears, but JOHN knows they are not tears because JOHN does not cry. Ever.

And that's the truth.


End file.
